This invention relates, in general, to antennas, and more specifically, to antennas which extend with out manual effort. Such auto-extending antennas may conveniently be used with portable radios, including portable telephones.
One of the many frequently occuring problems which manufacturers of portable communication equipment find is breaking antennas. There are many factors which can be attributed to breaking antennas. One factor is the force by which the user of the equipment pulls the antenna out of the casing. Another factor is the antenna is often twisted as the antenna is pulled out of the radio housing. This twisting may cause fatigue in the antenna after an extended period of time. These factors will continue to cause failure in antennas as long as manual extraction is required. However, to date a practical solution to the manual extraction problem has not been found for portable communication equipment.
Antenna fatigue is only one problem with manually extracting antennas. More and more users of electronic devices desire user-easy equipment where very few steps are required to have a fully operational device. Each time a user of portable communication equipment desires to make or answer a call, he or she must not only turn on the machine and often open a part of the radio housing, but must also pull the antenna out. This not only adds an additional step, but lengthens the time required to operate the equipment.